 Welcome to another Issues and Answers program and today we are here with three guests who I will introduce in a very short while. We are going to be discussing a serious matter that affects not only St. Lucia but I guess the region and perhaps the entire universe. We want to look at issues about males, responsibilities and all that goes with it. Without any further ado, let me just go straight to my guests and let me introduce my guests. First and foremost, the one sitting nearest to me, Mr. Janila Born. Welcome sir. We also have Mr. Lampiers. I've got to be careful about that one. Mr. Lampiers, Fredrik and Mr. Modestis-Louis, they are from, I guess, representing different sectors, different agencies, whatever. So I guess what? I will ask them very quickly to introduce themselves. They know themselves better than I do. So let's do that quickly and we will get into the discussion right away. Mr. Lampiers. Thank you very much. So Janila Born currently interim chairperson of the International National Youth Council which is a representative group, an envoy for young people across the island. Okay, my name is Lampiers. Fredrik, I am the Policy and Program Officer in the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment. I am Modestas Louis, and I represent the Do Nation Foundation. Do Nation Foundation is a voluntary organization, and we started this program called Father's Rise, which I will tell you a little more about as we go along. Okay, good. So we will be talking a lot about the Do Nation Foundation. I have heard about it, but I guess today we will learn a lot more about Do Nation Foundation. But let's start with Mr. Frederick representing the Ministry of Equity. What is the role of the ministry in this dispensation here? What are you all about with that men's issues that you want to put forward? Mr. Gospel, well, the Ministry of Equity has a mandate to deal with families, to deal with the social welfare, the social well-being of our nation. And our Honorable Minister, the Honorable Joachim Henry, noted the optic in crime and violence, especially among our nation's youth. And predominantly, we note that it is the young males that are victims of this current situation. So even way back in March of this year, Minister Henry convened a meeting with faith-based organizations, trying to glean from them ideas as to how we can implement some crime mitigation strategies. And in his quest, he chanced upon this non-governmental organization, Do Nation Foundation. That is already the brainchild of a program which I'm sure my co-guest will expound on. The brainchild of a program that is reaching out to men in St. Lucia. So he invited the heads of department at Ministry of Equity to throw out the idea that we have some collaboration with that NGO, so that we would host a National Men's Convocation. That forum would allow men to express what are the issues they are facing, hear all sides, give them a platform to have those meaningful conversations, and also hear from them what are their recommendations, what are their suggestions to resolve those issues. So basically the Ministry of Equity is giving Do Nation Foundation that enabling environment to implement that convocation which we have slated for the 27th of November. We're looking at the Darren Sammy Cricket Grounds as the venue for it. And it's going to be a full day of activities, fun filled. We're trying to promote it as a day for family and a family affair. Not just men, you can bring them, Madam. You can bring even your children. We want to cater to everyone so that it will be a family day and you can come out and participate in all of the activities set for that day. Good, so that takes us to Do Nation Foundation. I didn't, he put you on the spot. That's fine. Do Nation Foundation is, as Mr. Frederick mentioned, an NGO. It is the brainchild of Mrs. Diane Felicier. And while I could go through all the missions, basically we're looking to tackle the social ills within the society. We've recognized that no government, even with all the resources, would be able to tackle all the social ills. Much less us. That's a fact. Yeah, it is a fact. We've recognized that. And so we've decided that instead of cursing the darkness, we would light a candle. And so we started out. Now, last year, 2021, for Father's Day, we started this Father's Rise initiative because it's been recognized that the absence of fathers in the homes are a big contributor to a lot of the issues that we're seeing and experiencing. So this is where this is coming from. There's a lot more, but then that's just a teaser for you for now. Just a teaser. Yes. Mr. Le Bon, I don't know if everything you've heard already puts you on the spot now because as a young male growing up, you're feeling the brunt of it. The social ills that he spoke of. You are the president of the National Youth Council. What is the contribution of the National Youth Council to this initiative? Thank you. So similarly to Mr. Louis, the National Youth Council certainly has a responsibility to basically light that candle and to contribute towards alleviating many of the social issues, the challenges that young people face across the island. We recognize, of course, it is not possible for the state to be able to roll out interventions to solve the many issues that young people face. And of course, young people who go through those challenges have a knowledge of these experiences and are able to then come to the fore to be able to discuss and to bring forward solutions to many of those challenges that we face. So we recognize that systematically, young people in many ways are marginalized. In many ways, if you are to look at the various ways in which youth are not given the best life chances, you realize that young men, whether it is through the educational sector, whether it is through the employment, the job sector, whether it is through the social spaces within communities, young men are placed in very difficult situations to make very difficult decisions. And perhaps we are not preparing them sufficiently to deal with many of the challenges that young people face. So we understand that there is a responsibility that we must, that we have to educate young people sufficiently, young men, but also to be very sensitive to the challenges that young men face, specifically within the family environment. Because the home, we believe that the home environment, the dynamics, the power dynamics within the home, within the communities, leads to many of the difficulties that young men are posed with. And we must not be prescriptive, as it pertains to the solutions that are brought forward to deal with those issues. But we must provide, as the previous guest was saying, that we should provide the platform for the young men to speak to those issues. And of course we use these opportunities to build strong relationships with our young men, to which they feel empowered to then act on behalf of themselves and their peers within the various spaces. So it's more about creating the platform. And as a youth organization, we must always be open to understanding the experiences of young men across various backgrounds. Because the young man within the rural community has different experiences to the young man within an urban setting. And these are some of the peculiarities we have in mind. I was just about picking you on this one, the different experiences. Because Mr. Frederick mentioned the initiative about the father's rights. How does that include, say, the young men in the ghetto? But I don't like the word ghetto, sorry. But the marginalized and the disadvantaged men, those who commit the crimes, how do we embrace them? Well, one of the things I think donation really came forward with is that the program must be a dynamic program, a program that has key features that are attractive and appeal to young men across various spaces. For example, I believe we've had discussions on informal settings, whether it be the playing of dominoes or having a car show or bringing entertainers, comedians, individuals or settings that the young man within a rural setting or the young man who has different preferences or unconventional preferences may move towards. So I think for us it's less about the structured discussions and the dialogue, whereas the dialogue is important to distill the information. But it must be a safe space that we're creating, that the young man who sees this fly or hears this over the radio, hears at least one thing that he is interested or would like to know more about. And of course he comes into the space and we use this as the opportunity to then build a relationship to which the young man knows that it's not just him going through it, but there are men across the island who share those challenges and are able to then determine, well, how can we work together to address those? And I imagine it's not only about young men, nowadays the young women are also troublesome and giving some difficulties. Are you thinking about that, Mr. Federer? Well that did come up in our planning committee discussions that the issues facing men do have some aspects pertaining to women in society as well. And that is the reason why the Ministry of Equity has partnered with a number of different agencies and that includes the Division of Gender Affairs. They are also part of our planning committee. We have the Ministry of Youth and Sports and our initiative is not just only to hear the issues, but really important takeaways. How can we address it? Because it's one thing to just have a talk shop and to be discussing over and over the very same things that we already know. But we want to live on that day, November 27th, with concrete solutions in mind. You know, so here we are inviting the Small Business Development Center from the Ministry of Commerce. We're inviting the Center for Adolescent Renewal and Education. We're inviting even the Substance Abuse Advisory Council, so many different agencies that will address various aspects of the social ills that we're seeing in society. And the key messages on that day is to let men know these are your avenues for getting assistance. These are your avenues for at least making an application for job employment. These are your avenues for self-entrepreneurship. Let's take a pause here. The avenues that the men have. We take a pause there. When we return, we'll continue this very, very interesting discussion. We talk a lot about the danger of climate change, but climate action is not always easy to achieve. A new era in climate action began on the 1st of January 2019. Implementation of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol started then. Nations that agreed on the amendment will reduce the use of climate warming gases called HFCs in refrigerators and air conditioners by more than 80% over the next 30 years. This measure will help to avoid up to 0.4 degrees Celsius of global warming this century while continuing to protect the ozone layer. It contributes to reaching the global temperature targets, and it can work if it's fully supported and implemented. Preventing global warming is an extremely difficult task that will take a lot of time. The Kigali Amendment is one solution that's here already right now. Each nation has the power to bring the world closer to the climate goal by ratifying the Kigali Amendment. This is our chance to take action. Thank you very much for staying with us. We are discussing the issues with men in our society, young men, older men, males in particular, and we're looking at the issues that affect our society and this generation. We have with us three gentlemen who are very able gentlemen discussing those issues in a very dignified and very informed way, I must say. Before we took the break, we heard from Mr. Frederick telling us the things, specifically the things that must be done. But Do Nation Foundation, that's the agency or the NGO that the government is targeting to implement that initiative. We're represented here by Mr. Modesta-Sri. He's going to tell us a little more about where he has a quotation, a quote to read for us. Yes. Let's get Mr. Modesta-Sri. This quote is actually from a gentleman. I think it's fair to say the name is well-known. It's from a gentleman called Barack Obama, former president of the U.S. And at the time he made the speech, he was a candidate. This is just an excerpt from the speech. And he said, we know the statistics that children who grew up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime. Nine times more likely to drop out of schools. And 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems or run away from home or become adolescent parents themselves. Barack Obama as a candidate for the U.S. presidency on the 15th of June, 2008, addressing a church gathering made that speech. And I would invite anyone to read it. But what is telling is the influence of fathers in a home. And conversely, the negative influences when the fathers are absent, because it's been recognized that fathers provide the structure for the homes. Structure or stability? Structure, stability, whichever way you want to put it. The absence of the fathers, and this is so prevalent, the absence of the fathers from the homes, mean that you're lacking that structure and stability. And these are some of the results that you can talk about. You will see as a result crime, violence, school dropouts, and we see that oh so much. It is for all these reasons again, and I will come back and say this, that Do Nation Foundation decided to go into that area and seek an opportunity in our own small way to elevate that discussion. But how much success have you been making? Okay. How do you measure success? We started off with a panel discussion. Earlier on this year, we also had a gentleman, Coach Lyman, who actually came from the U.S. and this is one of the things he does. He looks to train fathers and we did this with a number of young, well to me, I mean practically everybody's young. That's not good then. Yes. But and so we've been at it. We don't expect that we will hold an activity and then tomorrow we'll see a magical change. This is a process, yes. But we have started the process and we are very happy that the ministry for example is coming on board, the National Youth Council, they're coming on board. So yes, all we really did was just start, start and we're hoping we're expecting that as we go along it will gather momentum and while we may not see the changes at the end of this year but there is the hope that this will create that momentum for change. And how much does, how much support does the NYC give to that initiative? Right. So we're really glad that Diane and her team really, you know, brought forward the invitation to the NYC to collaborate because from our standpoint, we understand within our network, of course, we have 21 branches across the island district different sports councils. So that's a starting point to which information can be disseminated to be filtered into the district. So we've supported along those lines. We're continuing to support with the mentorship component of the father's rise initiative where I think they've trained a few mentors who would be, you know, working within the communities and identifying the young men who would be interested in the initiative and also providing that level of guidance. So we're continuing to identify members within our network would be interested in that. On the day, we really want to perform that or support the initiative in terms of mobilizing young people to attend because we understand, of course, it's, I think we're looking at an off of the island. So we want to ensure that our members across the island, particularly young people who are in rural communities, can access the information and can attend and really benefit from the initiative. But moving forward, I mean, we really just let's suppose there will it be online? There has been discussions to have some form of teleconferencing platform, Zoom or WebEx or something where the diaspora can watch in, look in and see what is happening on the day. But we have not been able to really finalize those, but it's something on the table. Moving forward as an organization, we do see the need for a consistent program targeted at mentorship of boys and young men, young fathers, because that's so essential within our communities. Many young men do not have the opportunity to hear from someone who has been through the experience and who knows how to deal with those challenges and just hearing from somebody else, having the opportunity to tap into expertise, you know, whether within community or out of community that can be so valuable to the young man. And also, I think within the program, we will be providing the opportunity for young men to provide some testimonials to the gathering to share their own experiences and how they would have overcome the challenges as well. I can almost hear a young man saying, because of them fellows, that is them system fellows, man. Fellows in the system, I am that. How do you reach these people? Right. Well, I think, as we would have mentioned earlier, we do need to give some more thought to the program and how we can bring in this unconventional. And that's what they call the system. And not in the system. Yes, man. That is very true. And one of the things we all agree is that change is not necessarily instantaneous. In change management, you start off with a few. You get the early adopters. You work with them. And when others see something positive is happening, then they realize, okay, it may not be what I thought. You'll always get resistance to any form of change. That is a fact of life. But you cannot allow the fact that you have some resistance. To keep you right. No. You don't bemoan the masses who stay away. You celebrate the few who come. That way, you can make some headway. I recall a few years ago, I was part of it. There was a thousand man march. I don't know if you recall that. Were you part of it? Actually, I was. Okay. To me, we didn't read the kind of success or the objective that we were hoping we would have realized. It didn't happen. How different is that going to be this initiative? I want you to answer this, Mr. Frederick. Okay, well, as I mentioned earlier, this approach that we're taking this time is not just to simply re-examine the known issues. The focus is on solutions, meeting those men at the place where they need intervention. So, they come saying, we need employment. Employment agencies will be there. Your NELP, NELU for Skills Development. Your BELFUND, so that you'll assist those. Because we have some brilliant young men who have some initiatives for entrepreneurship, but they just do not know where can they access the microfinancing. So there, we have invited BELFUND to set up a booth for exhibition. And right there, we register persons. Come in, in such and such date, we make an appointment. You can come in with your idea. So, we want to have that kind of practical solution. And to give the young men hope that here is something where we can... You know, we also want to invite Department of Labor. Give the information. The United States Embassy has recently entered into an agreement for H1, H2 visas, skilled visas for persons to go to work in the United States. And most of the society does not know that. So the Department of Labor will be there. So it's not just the farm program as we know about it in Canada. But here is this new avenue opening. So that day is a day of information sharing, both from participants and your technical persons who are going to be on ground to give information as to what avenues are available. And that's what we believe is going to make a difference. Is it going to be more... Yes, this is the game. What is the date again? November 27th. Sunday, November 27th. A fun day for the entire family. But not just fun, but a day of real serious discourse on the issues affecting men. And there will be music? There will be music. That was one of the little things that we want to have... We want to end with a bang, a unity concert where we're going to be inviting Desralong, we're going to be inviting persons like Ashanti, Invader, to have that culmination to the day. Another little thing that we're going to be having is your stand-up comedians like Shack, Dove Too Funny, your coax, Noah Sees. So we have some funful things, and there are some that we're going to leave it for the dates of. When you come, you're going to enjoy. I was hoping you'd tell me a journey and modest as you'd say. You don't want everybody to run away. Anyway guys, we do not have much time left. I'll probably ask you to just give us a closing statement. A quick word. Very quickly, what would you say to our audience? Yes, it's all about opportunities. I think in every little way that we can, as individuals, as a collective group, find ways to expand or increase opportunities for young people. For young men, there's always a chance to keep pushing forward, keep striving. And as young people, as individuals in space, we will keep listening and finding ways to provide support where necessary. Modestas? We want to see fathers rise. We want the fathers to return to the homes. We need the structures. We need the stability for the younger generation coming up. We understand that many of the current fathers grew up without that structure. And so we are looking at ways and means of being able to provide that training. But we want fathers to stand and help build a better solution. That is what we're looking for. Two seconds for you. Well, I would just like to reiterate. Men in the community, please come out and look at that one-day event, the National Men's Convocation, and also look out for the many community assessments where our social transformation officers will be out hearing from them the issues that they face. Well, there you have it in Russia. The issues brought right before you. And I do hope that you make the effort to turn out on the 27th of November at the Darren-Same cricket ground. So we look forward to your presence. I'll be there and I'll be looking out for you. Thank you so much for staying with us or for viewing. And that's it for issues and answers.